Evolutionary population synthesis for binary stellar populations

Abstract

We present integrated colours, integrated spectral energy distributions, and absorption-line indices, for instantaneous burst solar-metallicity binary stellar populations with ages in the range l-15Gyr. By comparing the results for populations with and without binary interactions we show that the inclusion of binary interactions makes the appearance of the population substantially bluer - this is the case for each of the quantities we have considered. This effect raises the derived age and metallicity of the population. Therefore it is necessary to consider binary interactions in order to draw accurate conclusions from evolutionary population synthesis work.